118 chapter three
the list of purchases made at trebizond includes a horse bought from
the genoese Benedetto, while baggage was lodged in the house of his
compatriot niccolò doria. these genoese citizens were part of a colony
whose (first?) consul, paolino doria, ended his term in office on 28th april
1290 at latest,251 proving that genoese were already living in the com-
nenid capital and organised as a group before that date. two genoese are
recorded in 1291 as having attacked and robbed a venetian, killing him in
the skirmish. one of the perpetrators of this attack was the head of the
mint, niccolò doria, later even head of the imperial customs, and another
was the consul himself, galvano di negro, who refused to compensate
the victim’s companions or to arrest the guilty parties. they were still at
liberty when the venetian government made representations to the doge
of genoa.252
the same anti-venetian sentiment was again felt, although in a less
drastic manner, in another act in 1294.253 there is no reason to suppose
that the genoese colony in trebizond disappeared during the venetian-
genoese war of 1294–1299, although there are no documentary traces.
in the absence of any law legalising the status of genoese in the city,254
around 1300 a proposal was mooted granting them the right to settle in
their own quarter, leontokastron255—though the date could just as easily
have been the late 1280s. in any event, the first clear documentary evidence
after the war comes in 1302, when a genoese court of justice is mentioned,256
suggesting a well-established internal structure to the colony.
the Byzantine historian georgios pachymeres refers to the same geno-
ese colony in trebizond in connection with an event of 1304, and men-
tions that they had long been established there.257
[= ayas-tabriz] à sivas,” and his observation in note 4 that “sivas était, si l’on peut dire, la
porte de tabriz;” the point at which the two routes forked was certainly erzurum.
251 a document registered at caffa on this date includes the phrase versus Pauli-
num Aurie olim Consulem Januensium in imperio Trabixonde (Brătianu, Actes, p. 274); cf.
Brătianu, Recherches, p. 174.
252 cessi, “tregua,” p. 55; Brătianu, Recherches, pp. 174–175, gives the wrong date for
the incident; cf. caro, Genua, ii, p. 179 note 5, Balard, Romanie, i, p. 134 note 36, Karpov,
Impero, p. 73, papacostea, “gênes,” p. 224.
253 see below, p. 131 note 310.
254 as in other areas where they had settled (see p. 124 note 285, and p. 153 note 35), here
too the initial frameworks of agreement are simply absent; what references there are, as for
instance on the genoa-trebizond treaty of 1314, are vague (cf. Karpov, Impero, p. 143).
255 heyd, Histoire, ii, p. 96, Karpov, Impero, p. 143.
256 Karpov, Impero, p. 143.
257 pachymeres/Bekker, ii, p. 48; based on no other evidence, fallmerayer, Geschichte,
pp. 161–162, says that the presence of genoese merchants in the miniature empire dates